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THE STORY 



OF A 



CONNECTICUT LIFE 



BY 



CHARLES Q. ELDREDGE 




1919: 

Allen Book and Printing Co. 

Troy, N. Y. 



CTznf 

,£3?3A3 



Copyright, 1919, 

By Allen Book and Printing Co. 

Troy, N. Y. 



OCl -8 1919 

©CI.A535331 
j 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Chas. Q. Eldredge 

The Old Homestead 

Werner Hotel - 

Mrs. B. F. Miner - 

Miss Virginia L. Bacon - 

Rev. E. E. Pieisons - 

Miss Alice Hale 

Picture Group - 

Christopher Eldredge, Nancy Eldredge 

First Home in Hoosick Falls, N. Y. 

Mill, Warehouse and Office, 

Hoosick Falls, N. Y. 
House at Old Mystic, Ct., with Observation 

Tower, called " Riverview," Facing Page 61 

Residence and Office, Hoosick Falls, N. Y. Facing Page 62 
Yacht, James G. Blaine - - Facing Page 66 

House in Mystic as Sold in 1913 - Facing Page 67 

Home, Chas. Q. Eldredge, Riverview Cottage 

Facing Page 68 
Private Museum - Facing Page 69 



Facing Title Page 
Facing Page 13 
Facing Page 28 
Facing Page 39 
Facing Page 41 
Facing Page 42 
Facing Page 50 
Facing Page 51 
Facing Page 52 
Facing Page 59 

Facing Page 60 



THE STORY of a 
CONNECTICUT LIFE 

by CHARLES Q. ELDREDGE 



It is very generally expected when an autobi- 
ography is presented to the public, that there 
shall be something in it more interesting than 
found in the ordinary novel, and this I suppose 
is on the basis that truth holds up higher ideals, 
and could they only be told, presents more in 
facts, than the most successful novelist has ever 
attained in fiction. 

It is very reasonable, however, for the writer 
of an autobiography to fall far short of what the 
public expects of him, for he is handicapped 
from the start, in that no one seems anxious to 
arrange with him for a publication of his biogra- 
phy, (and this he cannot understand) , and so if 
his story is to be told he must use his own pen 
and tell it in his own way. 

For several years and from time to time, I 
have received written requests from absent friends 
to write up the story of my life, but until recently 
I have never considered it. 

Necessarily there will be a lot left out, but I 
will agree to put in only what really happened, 



and maybe, if the reader or hearer of this story 
was writing his own life, there would be an occa- 
sional streak of forgetfulness? in the record. 

Some wise novelist has said "Every story 
should have a beginning," and many of us have 
said in reading their effusions "The end should 
be proper close to it." 

However, for a beginning, I was born in Old 
Mystic in 1845 and so far as I can remember 
there was no especial celebration or housewarm- 
ing over the event. 

The occasion had been repeated eight times in 
the family upon my arrival, and my birth to look 
back upon was of unusual interest only because 
it was the last one. 

As the sewing machine came out the year of 
my birth, there was some talk of making it a na- 
tional holiday, but as my father was a boss car- 
penter working for one twenty-five a day and ten 
hours in the day, he only approved of Sundays 
and the Fourth of July, as days of rest. 

I have always been led to believe that it was a 
disappointment to my family that I was not born 
earlier in the month, so they could have had an 
enjoyable holiday upon the Fourth of July, but 
the Bible record makes the fifteenth of July my 
birthday and so far we have gotten along very well 
with it. 

On general principles it reads better in a biog- 
raphy to have the hero born late, rather than 
early. 



As it is quite the custom, my early years were 
spent with my parents who continued to make 
Old Mystic their home. 

When I was four years of age I had a fall from 
the rear end of an ox-cart, cutting my forehead 
upon a stone as I struck the ground that caused 
a scar yet visible. 

Some have said that this fall affected my brain. 

The same year we moved from the large house 
afterwards owned and occupied by A. B. Taylor, 
to the place where I now live. 

This was in 1849, and my father put on a scow, 
near where the Woolen Company's factory now 
stands, the small house that he had previously 
moved from Milltown, and brought to this place. 

The lot he had previously bought of E. D. 
Wightman, cashier of the Mystic Bank. 

And right here it will be proper to explain the 
local names, Mystic, and Old Mystic. 

For something like one hundred and sixty years, 
the village at the head of the river was known as 
Mystic, and for very many years after it was so 
known. 

The lower village was Mystic Bridge on the 
east, and Mystic River on the west, and there were 
Post Offices on both sides under these names. 

Up here the John Hyde Co. operated two large 
cotton mills and another at Indian Town, sup- 
plied from this village. 

We had two banks here, one a state bank, the 
other a national bank. The railroad ran from 



Providence to Stonington only, and all freight 
came by water to Mystic Bridge. 

Barges, which were large scows, met the in- 
coming vessels there, and brought their freight 
up the river to Mystic, and carried down the out- 
put from the factories. 

Captain William Taylor, Captain William Car- 
penter, Captain Amos Mitchell, Thomas Lymas 
and B. F. Collins, owned and operated this line of 
freighters. 

This village was a lively one and the home of 
many hundreds of people. 

When the railroad from Stonington to New 
London was completed, it seemed to change the 
old order of things. 

The Hyde Company went out of business. 

Banks started at Mystic Bridge and Mystic 
River, and the railroad found it impossible to sell 
tickets satisfactorily to so many Mystics. 

As the lower village now increased rapidly, it 
was found that correspondents directed their let- 
ters to Mystic, and they came up here when in- 
tended for the lower villages; and the railroad 
tickets were printed Mystic, with the result that 
a general howl went up to Washington asking 
them to give the name of Mystic to the lower vil- 
lages; and the people up here chose Old Mystic 
as the best they could do. 

This made much feeling, some of which still 
exists. 

I was out of the State, as will be shown later, 



when this change was made, but I felt as all here 
did, that it was in a measure, at least, unfair. 

When I think of our village as it used to be, 
employing hundreds of operatives in her factories, 
building gun boats for the government, as she did 
in 1812; building a large schooner of three hun- 
dred tons, named the Mystic Valley, in 1858; 
having a side wheel steamer with Capt. Rowland, 
master, carrying passengers up to the dock; and 
see her as a village, as she is now, with only one 
industry, and no bank, it looks as if the railroad 
had really taken more than we had been paid for. 

Besides, Major Lamb had two factories over to 
Burnetts Corners, one of them built on the site of 
the Pequot Fort, destroyed by Mason, that drew all 
supplies and shipped all outputs from this village. 

However, Mystic as now called may glory in the 
way she has gone ahead, and left us far behind, 
she can never rob us of our "Porters Rocks," or 
of the Oldest Baptist Church Organization in Con- 
necticut. 

Just outside the village we have in good repair, 
the first parsonage built in the United States for 
the use of this same society, and Old Mystic as 
now called, shows the longest pastorates that the 
world has a record of, a father, son, and grand- 
son preached for this society a hundred and twen- 
ty-five years. 

In my early days the choir was led by a bass 
viol, played by Ezekiel Gallup and it seems to me 
from memory, no pipe-organ has ever exceeded 



the melody and harmony produced by that choir. 

The Sunday School of the fifties was somewhat 
different from that of to-day. 

I have one of the Infant Cathechism Books and 
also one of the books from the Sunday School Li- 
brary. 

Its title is "John Rogers, Burned at the Stake." 

Nothing of a less serious nature was admitted. 

At the age of six, I entered the common school 
taught by Miss Aseneth Williams. 

The school-house was a two story one, near 
where the present school -house stands. 

The younger pupils all attended down stairs, 
and when we were tall enough we went up. 

On the left hand corner of the school-room, a 
piece of board was nailed across, with the edge 
down, about two feet from each side and I should 
guess some three and a half feet high. 

At the beginning of each term we were lined up 
and told to measure. 

If any of our heads hit the board we had to go 
upstairs to a man teacher. 

I remember I "scrunched" one term, for Sarah 
Fellows was teacher and I just loved Sarah, and 
so I got an extra term downstairs. Sometimes 
those that went up were so very ignorant and stu- 
pid that the teacher would send them down to 
measure again, but so far as I remember they al- 
ways confirmed the previous measurement. 

Kindergartens and grades were unknown, inches 
only counted. There were no laws compelling 



attendance, and home duties came first, so that 
inequalities in proficiency were frequent. The 
school in summer had few pupils, but in winter 
every seat was filled. 

The fall term started late and after my last term 
downstairs, when I ought to have gone up, I en- 
tered barefoot, hoping I could get under the board 
again, but it was too conspicuous and altho I tried, 
and was the only barefoot one there, I was made 
to go upstairs. 

I think for several winters I got along pretty 
well but I know we were pretty troublesome to the 
teachers, and rarely the same one taught us more 
than one term. 

School visitors were not pleasant to us, tho an 
exception to this was Gen. Williams of Norwich, 
whom we all liked, for he told us nice stories with 
his good advice. 

Esquire Sabin of Mystic was our special horror 
for he never commenced his address until five min- 
utes of four, and generally talked till five o'clock. 

At one time it was given out that the Commit- 
tee, one of whom was Abel Hinckley, father of 
the one now living here, had hired a man for the 
coming winter that would be very strict and never 
let a day pass without flogging at least one boy. 

Of course, this kind of talk nerved us up and 
when school was to commence we had out scouts 
to give notice of his approach. 

There were forty-two of us boys, and forty-five 
girls. Our scouts reported him coming afoot 



from North Stonington way. His name was Hib- 
bard R. Norman, stood over six feet and was not a 
handsome man. 

We formed two ranks from the school-house 
steps, up the road he was to come down. 

We had the girls on the outer end. 

Like a V we opened up, he entering by the mid- 
dle of the road at the wide end. 

He had an old-fashioned Kennebecker in his 
hand and as he came down the line, "with our eyes 
front and hats off," we received him. 

As I remember it, he did not like it. 

(He did not have much humor.) 

We got into the school-house, which had four 
rows of double seats with desk in front. 

From the platform, and teacher's desk, the right 
side was for boys and the left for girls. 

All the larger, were way back, tapering to the 
smallest in front. We had all agreed that when 
our names were asked, which was the first thing to 
be done, that we would all give fictitious middle 
initials. 

If there were those that had no middle letter 
they should put one in, and those that did have, 
should change it. 

Now as it happened, I sat on the back seat to 
the left hand side and was the first to be called 
upon to give my name. 

I suppose it was because my parents had so 
many children that they never gave them a mid- 
dle name, anyway none of them ever got one. 

10 



So when he looked at me, saying he wished to 
enter the names upon the register, I responded 
Chas. Q. Eldredge. 

Trouble set in immediately, for not only the 
boys, but all of the girls broke out into a hearty 
laugh. 

My seatmate at this time was Albert F. Crumb, 
now of Groton Bank, and while he went back on 
his promise, and the false initial business ended 
right there, and while it made me a lot of trouble, 
I do not know as he ought to be blamed. 

Of course, I was pretty mad at the time. 

In those days the Roll Call was one of the most 
prominent things in school work. 

To illustrate: In the morning at the opening of 
school the roll was called. 

At twelve o'clock when school was to be dis- 
missed, the roll was called. 

At one o'clock when school was opened, the roll 
was called and at four o'clock, dismissal time, it 
was called again. 

At first I could give no reason for it, but later 
when I had been repeatedly sent out by the teach- 
er to cut young beach sprouts for use in his busi- 
ness, I decided that if it was not to note the dead, 
it certainly was to mark the wounded. 

That first forenoon, when he called the roll at 
twelve the same howl went up from every seat ex- 
cept mine. 

I, some way, did not feel like laughing. 

At one o'clock again ; and now he caught on, but 

11 



could not tell the exact why of it. 

At four o'clock again they broke forth and he 
dismissed the school but "requested" me to stop. 

Some of the boys tried to stay with me, but he 
made them all go. 

As soon as they were out he told me to come 
up front, and in this case I considered it no honor. 

If the man had had any fun in him, it might 
have been fixed, but he snarled out the question, 
"Why do they laugh when I call your name?" 

As I look back I am afraid I was not entirely 
truthful in my reply which was, "Oh, they are 
always laughing at me; why didn't you keep 
THEM, I didn't laugh any." 

(True so far.) 

Next he said, "Is your name Eldredge?" 

Of course, to this I could say, "Yes, sir." 

"Well, isn't it Charles?" he asked. 

"Always been called so," I said; and a queer 
thing, he did not ask me about the "Q," but told 
me I could go home. 

I went, but even then I did not feel perfectly 
happy, for the streets, the Post Office and the 
stores were full of it, and where he boarded at 
Mr. Hinckley's he got the whole story, for there 
were two girls there, one now the widow of Allyn 
Avery of Mystic, that tried to tell him it was all 
fun and there was no harm in "Q" anyhow. 

Was he appeased? 

Not much! 

Some way I feared trouble and went to bed 

12 




THE OLD HOMESTEAD 

Built 1850 



Where the School Officers delivered their ultimatum. 



early and none too soon, for I had hardly gotten 
upstairs before Mr. Norman, the Committeeman, 
and Esquire Sabin came to the door, and entering 
the house, took seats in the kitchen from which 
a stove pipe ran through the ceiling and into my 
room. 

We had a spare room in the house, but that eve- 
ning it was not warmed. 

I put my ear close to the stove pipe and heard 
the conversation plainly. 

There was a lot said, and when all was summed 
up by Squire Sabin, it was that I was to come to 
school in the morning and when school was called 
to order, and before roll call, I was to apologize 
at length, and make a statement that all could 
understand, setting forth how sorry I was and mak- 
ing promises of good conduct and no capers for 
the future, and if I did not do this, I was to be 
immediately expelled, and that before the whole 
school and in the presence of the honorable Com- 
mittee, who were to be in attendance and who 
were to have the pleasure of reading my sentence. 

While the hearing of this was interesting, it was 
not very agreeable. 

It gave me, however, time to think, and in a 
measure to prepare myself. 

As a boy of about fifteen who really liked to go 
to school, and did not want to disgrace his par- 
ents by being expelled, the situation was a solemn 
one. 

I slept little that night and had no strong de- 

13 



sire for breakfast. My parents in the morning 
told me of their callers, expressed their sorrow 
that a boy of theirs should do such a thing, and in- 
sisted that my grown-up brothers had arrived at 
manhood, and did fairly well without a middle 
name, and they could not understand why I should 
be so anxious for one, especially as it was such a 
disgrace to them. 

However, they knew I would do the right thing 
when I went up to school, and they only hoped 
it would be a life-long lesson to me. And I will 
say right here in parenthesis "it has." 

I hung around "Hank's Grove" till the last 
notes of the bell called me in, but even then as 
I sought the streets I was yelled to from the Post 
Office and Morgan's store, "Hello, 'Q' ", and this 
by adults, who were full of my story. 

As I look back upon that morning and the con- 
dition of things at the opening of school, I almost 
wonder that I came out alive. First, every scholar 
was present. 

Next, the committee in their best clothes, and 
with their high silk hats ranged in a row on the 
floor under the large blackboard. 

Next, the teacher, H. R. Norman, six feet, three, 
and wide in proportion; and all against a little 
fellow that weighed about a hundred pounds, it 
seemed to me then and it seems to me now, that 
there was not an equitable division of forces. 

I was the last to enter, and when I had come 
through the door, it was closed by the teacher, his 

14 



gavel descended on his desk, and he said, "Before 
roll call Charles Eldredge wishes to make an 
apology to the Committee of this school district, 
to the teacher, and to the scholars." 

I had studied all night on what I was to say, 
but when he had made his remarks which were, 
of course, intended for an introduction, I could 
not think of a thing. 

As I hesitated, every eye in school was turned 
on me, and even this did not really seem to help 
me. 

After a little I stood up. 

My Heavens! How still it was! 

I think I can remember every word I said. 

First, I made a somewhat low bow; this was to 
gain time; then I said, "The teacher has told you 
that I 'Want' to make an apology. 

"As I want to be truthful I will have to say, 
he is mistaken when he says I 'want' to, but I am 
going to, as well as I know how. 

"This trouble has all come about because I put 
a "Q" in my name. 

"And I want to say I had no right to do it, and 
I am sorry for the trouble it has made, and I will 
promise to never put another "Q" in my name as 
long as I live." 

With this I sat down and the teacher said, "Stand 
up again, sir." 

Of course, I stood up. 

"What he wants to say," said the teacher, "is 
that he has committed a grievous offence against 

15 



the morals and deportment of this school, that its 
magnitude can hardly be overestimated, that the 
generosity, and magnanimity of the school Com- 
mittee and teacher, in forgiving, and pirdoning 
the offence in consideration of this apology, is 
very much appreciated, and his future conduct 
will be based on this noble exhibition of their for- 
giving spirit — That's what you want to say, is it 
not sir?" he asked me. 

I hesitatingly replied, "I suppose you under 
stand it; I said it as well as I could." 

So the incident was closed but the "Q" has 
lived on, and has had a legal place in my name 
for over sixty years. 

My school life went on, attending winters and 
helping father, and working out more or less, 
summers. 

The first money I remember of really working 
out by the day for, was driving a pair of white 
horses owned by Geo. F. Langworthy, around an 
oat stack, the horses treading out the grain. 

For this I was paid eight cents per day. 

Are there many of my readers who have seen 
grain thrashed in this way? 

When John S. Schoonhover carried on a large 
tannery in this village I pounded bark for him 
for twenty-five cents a day. 

I, also, at one time, worked for Elias B. Brown 
husking, filling as many baskets as the men, and 
for this I received twenty-five cents per day. 

As I remember it, I had all the money I earned, 

16 



but the most of it went into clothes and very little 
for spending money. 

Very few of the boys had much money "to 
burn" and my largest outside expenditure was for 
material to celebrate the Fourth of July, which 
was never neglected. 

All of my boy chums worked out more or 
less summers and my record in this direction 
seems full. 

In 1859 I made one of a gang of road workers, 
under the supervision of the Hon. Chas. P. Chip- 
man, who had a yearly contract with the town of 
Groton to keep all of its roads in repair. 

I was really the only boy in the crew but I held 
the "scoop-shovel" which entitled me to a man's 
pay. 

In 1860, a Mr. Markham opened a quarry near 
my home and with a crew of Swedes and Scotch- 
men broke out paving stone that were shipped 
to New York City to pave the city streets. 

Mr. Markham hired me to help break out the 
large blocks by hand drilling, which were then 
broken into pavers with twenty-four pound sledges 
in the hands of the Scotchmen. 

This hand drilling seemed to come natural to 
me, and it was not hard work for me to get in the 
required number of holes, and after a few weeks, 
I kept the time and the books for Mr. Markham, 
doing this work evenings. 

This crew of Scotchmen required some eight 
pounds of oat meal stirred into the water they 

17 



drank every day, which I shared with them, and 
while sometimes it was so thick a mixture we had 
to bite it off "to stop the run," it made a good 
drink and my weight increased as long as I was in 
the quarry. 

The Presidential Campaigns of 1856 and 1860 
were important epochs in my life and I still have 
the torch I carried for Fremont and Dayton in 
1856. 

It was in 1854 that my head would not go un- 
der the measuring board and I was sent upstairs 
to be under the teaching of Asa Perkins, a teacher 
that we all liked. 

In 1862 my next elder brother having enlisted, 
and being stationed at Norfolk, Virginia, a mem- 
ber of Co. C, 21st C V, sent for his wife to come 
and see him, as he was badly disabled, and be- 
ing cared for in a private hospital. 

As his wife had a baby about six months old 
and it was difficult to provide proper board for it 
in Mystic, it was thought best to take it along 
and I was to go along to pilot the whole outfit. 

I was about sixteen years of age, had never 
been more than seven miles from home, and cer- 
tainly my selection as head of the expedition was 
not made because of my experience. 

In those days, ordinary people had few trunks, 
but carpet bags were common. 

The uncertainties of traveling, no Northern 
people could go south of Baltimore without a 
pass, the mother, the baby, and myself, especial- 

18 



ly the baby, called for no small amount of bag- 
gage and when it was all assembled, for I have 
the inventory yet, there were two carpet bags, two 
good sized square bundles, two medium sized 
round bundles, one ladies' hat box, one umbrella 
and the well-wrapped up baby. 

Colonel Fish of Mystic was Provost Marshal 
at Baltimore and Elisha D. Wightman, cashier of 
the Mystic Bank, gave me a letter to him asking 
his assistance in getting me and my outfit through 
the lines. 

We took the steamboat from Stonington to New 
York and another boat from there to Baltimore. 

We arrived at Baltimore in the evening. 

I was surprised at the number of people on the 
dock who seemed interested in our arrival and 
"will you have a carriage" was asked me at least 
fifty times. 

My general instructions read, "If you get to 
Baltimore in the evening, stay at Hotel all night, 
for the military offices will not be open till nine 
o'clock in the morning." 

No suggestions were given to me as to what 
hotel, so I asked one of the hackmen if he could 
tell me a good comfortable hotel to go to, that 
there was a lady and baby on the boat and my- 
self. 

"Oh, yes," he said, "bring them ashore and I 
will take you to the 'Barnum,' that is a comfort 
able hotel." 

Remember, up to that time I had never spent a 

19 



night in a hotel in my life, and more than that, 
had never been inside of one. When the hack- 
man saw my array of bundles, carpet bags, baby, 
etc., he opened the door of the hack without a 
word and we all got in. 

As we drove up to the main entrance of the 
hotel, we were met by the bell-boys and we had 
baggage enough so every one got a piece. 

I did not know but my sister would give up the 
baby, but she did not. 

Our procession marched to the clerk's counter 
and I asked for two connecting rooms and we 
were all taken upstairs. 

Some of the baggage was put into each room, 
as I think they were short of tables. 

The boys seemed inclined to tarry with us and 
at that time I did not mistrust why. 

After they finally left us, in looking about the 
room, I found fastened to the door a card of rates 
and prices and for each of our rooms, four dol- 
lars per day was the advertised charge, meals ex- 
tra. 

This was a knock-out. 

My brother had financed this expedition from 
his savings as a soldier, drawing thirteen dollars 
per month, and the whole fund would be put out 
of sight immediately if these charges were to be 
met. 

I held a consultation with my sister and we 
agreed that something must be done. 

So I walked down stairs and to the clerk's 

20 



office and told my story, which in the main was 
that I had come to their hotel without knowing 
anything of its terms and that we were bound 
south to see a disabled soldier and had hardly 
enough money for our fares, and if he would let 
us out without charge and tell us some cheap re- 
spectable hotel we could go to, we should appre- 
ciate it very much indeed. 

He wanted to know how much we expected to 
pay and I told him the limit we could spare 
would be two dollars. 

"All right," he said, "stay here for that." 

That I thanked him, goes without saying. 

We did not have to be called in the morning 
and when it was fairly light we walked out upon 
the street, enquiring our way to the steamboat 
landing for Fortress Monroe. 

We had a long walk but finally got there, and 
were told the boat did not go out till towards 
night and passengers were not allowed aboard 
till near sailing time, and must then show passes, 
etc. I had had such good luck at the hotel that 
I did not intend to fall down here, so I asked for 
an officer of the boat, and told my story, and while 
he had no right to let anyone aboard without a 
pass, he consented that my sister and baby could 
sit in the cabin until I got my pass and failing 
to get a pass, I would remove the whole outfit 
ashore without trouble. 

I went to the Provost Marshal's Office at eight 
o'clock, and found a jam of more than a hun- 

21 



dred there, waiting to get in. They were all col- 
ors, shapes and sizes, male and female. 

I finally got into the office, but as my ability 
to secure a pass was founded on the personal 
letter to Col. Fish, I had to wait until he came 
in. 

At about eleven o'clock he came, and I got a 
pass to Fortress Monroe only, while I expected 
one to Norfolk. 

With this pass I returned to the steamboat and 
secured passage to Fortress Monroe. 

My pass from Baltimore ordered me to report 
in person to General B. F. Butler, the command- 
ing general, who, if so disposed, would pass m^ 
on, but they were restricting passes and I might 
have trouble upon arriving at the Fortress. 

I left my sister and all of our accessories 
aboard of the steamboat and went to the General's 
Office. 

He received me in person, questioned me close- 
ly, and gave me a pass to Norfolk. 

With this pass I again went back to the steam- 
boat, but since it was not to leave for four hours, 
and it being dull, I went ashore, after reporting 
to my sister that I had fortunately secured our 
pass, and walked along the beach, down by the 
big fort. On a sand point ahead of me I saw 
a very large cannon mounted on an iron frame- 
work some fifteen feet high and iron steps lead- 
ing up to it. 

This gun was between the ocean and the fort, 

22 



which was quite high above it. 

From the top of the fort to the gun was prob- 
ably twenty rods. At this time the wind blew 
quite a gale ashore and as I went to the gun and 
saw the steps leading up I thought it would be 
interesting to go up them and examine it "first- 
hand," as it were. I think I had gotten more 
than half way up, when a darkey, hauling sand 
from a point half way between the gun and the 
base of the fort, attracted my attention by his 
loud calls, and as I stopped on my ascent to lis- 
ten to him, he said, "Better come down, massa, 
they'll shoot." 

I looked up over him to the fort and on top 
were some twenty men with guns at their shoulders 
and apparently pointed my way. 

I immediately came down and the negro said 
they had ordered me three times to keep away 
from the gun and as I had paid no attention, they 
were getting ready to shoot. 

The wind had prevented me from hearing their 
call. 

They supposed I was going to spike the gun, 
and in those days a man's life was not very valu- 
able anyhow. 

Well, I thanked the darkey who had undoubt- 
edly saved my life and the steamboat was good 
enough for me to stay in during the rest of the 
delay at the Fortress. 

We arrived in Norfolk and found my brother 
able to be up around but not able to report at 

23 



the Co's headquarters. 

As I was well acquainted with many of the men 
and officers of Co. C, I was allowed to wear my 
brother's uniform, draw his rations, and in fact 
did duty for some time as a hospital steward. 

As some days I wore civilian clothes, and some- 
times a uniform, I was enabled to become ac- 
quainted with most parts of the city of Norfolk 
and the surrounding country. 

I got a pass one day to go over to Suffolk to 
see the Navy Yard that had been pretty well de- 
stroyed April 21st, 1861, and this was of course 
granted me in civilian clothes. 

In looking around Suffolk, I saw a large ves- 
sel with many guns lying at the dock, and I was 
interested to go aboard. 

There was a gang plank leading to her deck 
and a man with a musket and bayonet attached 
paced, or walked across the entrance. Why I 
waited till he got to the end of his beat I do not 
know, but I know I did, and then stepped aboard, 
and was out of sight before he turned. 

I walked the length of the ship and as I came 
back I seemed to be attracting considerable atten- 
tion. 

Many men were stationed at small tables ap- 
parently making and comparing maps of some 
kind and they seemed quite surprised to see me. 

I accordingly made for the gangway and I 
think I went faster than a walk but not fast enough 
to escape the point of a bayonet that not only 

24 



damaged my pants, but drew blood enough to en- 
title me to a pension, only the location of my 
wound prevented my ever making application. 

I took part in one or two little raids made by 
the Co that resulted in the confiscation of a few 
pumpkins and they were called by the boys "pump- 
kin raids." 

During my stay in Norfolk which extended 
over considerable time, a Connecticut Lieutenant 
was drilling colored troops in the city,, when a 
resident doctor, David W. Wright, by name, came 
out of his office and insulted him. 

The lieutenant pushed him aside and told him 
to keep away or he would put him under arrest. 
With this the doctor drew a revolver and shot 
him dead. 

The doctor was arrested, tried and convicted 
and sentenced to be hanged. 

He broke jail twice, was recaptured and in Sep 
tember, 1862, was driven in a hack behind his own 
coffin, to the Fair Grounds outside the city, and 
our regiment had the honor of hanging him. I 
cut out a piece of the rope that strangled him and 
have it yet. The lieutenant whom he shot, had 
a wife and two children and although it did not 
give him back to them, I have always felt that 
it eased their loss. 

I have always kept up my acquaintance with 
many of the survivors of this company and when, 
on October 20th, 1898, a monument was erected 
in New London to perpetuate the memory of the 

25 



regiment, I received a special invitation to attend 
the exercises. 

It was on this occasion that Thaddeus Pecor 
of Noank offered a resolution that hereafter I 
should be legally known as a member of the 
company and moved that I be received and entered 
on the roll as a "Daughter of the Regiment." 

This would have passed unanimously, had not 
General Taylor, a well known and conspicuous 
officer of the company objected, on the grounds 
that while I had been wounded in the service, the 
location of the wound was not commendatory, 
and would detract rather than add to their fighting 
record. 

That there may be no misunderstanding, I wish 
to state clearly the fact that I am not legally num- 
bered with the survivors. 

We had less trouble in coming North than we 
had in going South, and our baggage was better 
arranged. 

Soon after coming home I entered school and at- 
tended till the last Friday in December, 1862. 

The Monday following, at 4 A. M. I started with 
Elisha D. Wightman for Wisconsin. 

Without explanation this would seem sudden and 
though it was sudden I feel an explanation is nec- 
essary to understand this real turning point in my 
life. 

The last Sunday in December, 1862, I went up 
to the village in the evening to attend Divine Serv- 
ice in the Baptist Church, previously alluded to, 

28 



as was my usual custom, and seeing a light in one 
of the stores which was a most unusual sight of a 
Sunday night, I stepped inside and found Mr. 
Wightman, before mentioned, buying a full box of 
Lillenthral's Fine Cut Chewing Tobacco. 

A gentleman that had followed me in said to 
Mr. Wightman, "Buying tobacco heavy, aren't 
you?" 

"Yes," he answered, "I start west in the morn- 
ing and want a good stock." 

"Who is going with you?" was then asked. 

"Going alone," he replied, "unless Charlie Q. 
goes with me," turning to me and continuing, 
"how would you like it?" 

I told him I guessed I would like it all right 
and asked where he was going. 

He said "Wisconsin," and asked me into his 
house. 

I spent the evening there instead of in church 
and agreed with him to start for Wisconsin the 
next morning, he to pay all expenses and deliver 
me back in Mystic one year from date on a salary 
of one hundred and twenty-five dollars, provided 
I could get the consent of my parents which I 
thought I could. 

I went home and it was more of a job than I 
had anticipated to get their consent. 

They were getting advanced in years, but as my 
brother's wife was with them I used her presence 
as a lever to boost my argument and won out. 

Up to this time I had never worn woolen under- 

27 



wear and I might truthfully add, no other kind, 
and the boys of my acquaintance showed that I 
was no exception. 

We drove from the village to Groton Bank, 
took the ferry to New London, the Central Vermont 
north, and the Canadian Route to Chicago. 

The sceond day out at 4 A. M. a rail broke and 
derailed our train, the car Mr. Wightman and I 
were in rolling down an embankment, turning 
over three times and killed or wounded every per- 
son in the car except Mr. Wightman and myself; 
and this escape for us was because we, without 
thought, put our hands under the seat and held 
rigidly when the car made its turns. 

The car was equipped with stoves, as all cars 
in those days were and fire destroyed the wreck, as 
was also the usual custom. 

Thermometers in Chicago were thirty-four be- 
low zero, but I had no chance to get underwear 
till we arrived in Milwaukee. 

A short stop here and then west on the M. and 
St. Paul railroad to New Lisbon, where Mr. 
Wightman stopped. 

Then by team I went twelve miles north to our 
headquarters, Werner, Wisconsin. 

My real introduction to the woolly west was 
when I was dumped out of the sled at Werner, 
onto the front porch of the hotel. 

I found that the landlord was shut into his room 
with smallpox, that the man who usually cooked 
had started the day before for the doctor who was 

28 



twelve miles away and had not yet returned. 

There was a wood fire in the bar room and a 
pile of long w T ood out of doors, and the snow some 
three feet deep. 

Water for the hotel was taken from a well 
thirty feet deep, nearby, and hoisted up with a 
windlass. 

I found in this well a pole with a chisel on the 
lower end to cut the ice before water could be 
taken from it. 

Mr. Wightman's interest in this section was de- 
rived from the foreclosure by his bank of a mort- 
gage on pine lands which he purposed to develop. 

The general custom was to take a crew of some 
twenty-five men and several ox-teams in the fall 
and go up the river some eighty miles, build a 
camp and a cattle shed, and when the snow came, 
have more teams, both oxen and horses, haul the 
logs to the river and when the snow melted and 
the freshet came in the spring, drive the logs down 
the river to the mill. 

As we did not get there till January, it was late 
to make a start, but Mr. Wightman wanted to put 
in one camp anyhow, and so after a few days at 
this hotel, I was sent on with some twenty men 
and four teams to build a camp and go to log- 
ging- 

An experienced state-of-Maine lumberman was 
boss of the outfit, and my position was the same 
as that of the other Irishmen and Kanucks which 
made up the crew. 

29 



It was a hard trip. 

I wore the boots that I had brought from Con- 
necticut and the second day out my feet and legs, 
to nearly my knees were frozen badly. 

My boots were cut off any my feet and legs 
soaked in kerosene oil. 

In a few days I could get around, but it was 
many years before I ever attempted to wear a 
boot. 

Moccasins in that climate were necessary, for 
unless the joints work the foot will freeze. 

To build a camp in three to four feet of snow 
with the mercury twenty-eight to thirty-five below 
zero, was a serious job. 

This camp was thirty feet square, built with one 
log only outside and then drawn in like a /^ 

There was a place for fire in the center 6x10 
feet and a hole through the roof, 4x10 feet logged 
up like a chimney. 

A constant fire burned all the time, using 
about one and a half cords of wood every twen- 
ty-four hours, yet in the drinking water barrel, in 
this camp, I saw ice make four inches in one 
night. 

We slept on the ground under the edge of the 
roof with feet towards the fire, close together as 
we could lie and none too many blankets over 
us. 

The blankets were all sewed together and the 
"end man" was allowed enough to tuck under and 

30 



i 



"clinch." 

I worked that winter as a "swamper," did a 
man's work and kept my eyes open. 

We lived on salt beef, salt pork, beans, hot 
wheat bread every meal, tea and sorgum molas- 
ses. 

No vegetables, no coffee, no sugar, no butter. 

There was no sickness and men went out to work 
in the morning while the stars still shone, and 
never came in till they saw them again, except for 
a thirty-minute stop for dinner. 

No card playing was allowed, and no talking 
after nine o'clock. 

In the spring, I did not stay for the long drive 
but went down to the settlement to help get the mill 
ready for sawing. 

It was eighty miles by "tote road" from the set- 
tlement where the mill was located to the pinery, 
and one hundred miles by the river. 

Supplies were hauled by horse teams which 
made regular trips each week and they also brought 
the mail for the men. 

My first winter in the woods is remarkable in 
looking back upon it for just one thing; that I 
really survived it. 

Of course no one was expected to die in camp, 
and so the crew was selected, to so far as possible, 
avoid that possibility. 

But I had not been selected, and was really a 
curiosity to the men, and a constant source of 
wonder as to how I would go thru the winter. 

31 



After the first few days that my frozen feet and 
legs bothered me I never lost an hour's time while 
in camp. 

As I acted for the boss as time-keeper, and had 
charge of the "Wongen Box" where clothing and 
tobacco was sold to the crew, some little respect 
was shown me as being in a small degree the rep- 
resentative of the owners. 

Sundays were spent in washing clothes by some 
of the boys, and writing letters to friends. 

A lot of the crew did not consider either neces- 
sary. 

Upon my return to the village in the spring, I 
was sent to the same hotel and found the landlord 
that had the smallpox, on duty but badly pox 
marked. 

Gurdon S. Allyn of Mystic was in the village 
when I came down and I then learned for the first 
time that he held a controlling interest in the bus- 
iness which was known as E. D. Wightman & Co. 
George F. Langworthy of Mystic was the third 
partner. 

Mr. Allyn, in talking with me, seemed to assume 
that I ought to know all about the business and 
gave me to understand that he should expect me 
to look out for things and report to him. 

As I was but a boy, and he had three bosses 
that he was paying seventy dollars a month, I could 
hardly see bow I could meet his requirements, es- 
pecially as I was "green." 

He stayed only a few days, but he gave the 

32 



impression to the people of Werner that I was his 
representative, and that in matters connected with 
the business it would be well to consult with me. 
Besides this, the money for payroll and expenses 
went through my hands and as this, at this time, 
was some ten thousand dollars a month, it had its 
influence. 

As the company had not put in logs enough to 
keep the mill running all summer, we contracted 
to saw a few million feet at five dollars per thou- 
sand. 

Several saw-mills were located on this, the Yel- 
low River, and as the logs came down in the 
drive, each log bearing the registered mark of the 
owner, was sorted into the "booms" of the re- 
spective mills. 

When our logs reached the mill, we started 
it at six o'clock A. M. and at twelve stopped 
thirty minutes for dinner; at twelve-thirty started 
again and ran till six o'clock, making eleven and 
one half hours of work. 

Our mill was equipped with one large double 
rotary, and one sixty-inch single rotary, beside 
edgers, trimmers, shingle, picket, and lath saws. 

Our average daily output was eighty thousand 
feet of inch lumber, twenty thousand shingle, 
thirty thousand lath, and five thousand pickets. 

The logs were all white pine, mostly sixteen 
feet long and averaged two, to two and a half to 
the thousand. 

From the mill, the lumber, loaded on cars, was 



run to where it was rafted, a few hundred feet 
from the mill. 

When a "fleet," as it was called, was ready, it 
was run or floated out of the Yellow River, into 
the Wisconsin, then into the Mississippi and down 
that river, till a market was found, sometimes a 
few hundred of miles only, and frequently to 
Hannibal or St. Louis, Mo. 

As I became very intimately acquainted with 
the Mississippi River in later years, I will at a later 
period of my narrative refer to it again. 

All through that summer of 1863 I was for the 
most part of the time in the company's store, help- 
ing out in the mill, and fitting into any vacancy 
that arose. 

The store was simply a place where we kept 
things most needed for the help and was usually 
open only evenings. 

There was no other store in the village, but a 
few years later a large store building was put up 
by the company and Benj. F. Miner of Mystic put 
in charge of it, who with half a dozen more young 
men from Connecticut, had been sent out by the 
management. 

At the end of my first year, January, 1864, I 
settled up with the company, and of my contract 
price, one hundred and twenty-five dollars, I had 
sixty-two and a half paid me as balance due. I 
was unable to leave for a month, but February 
first, with ticket paid for by the company as 
agreed, I went home on a visit. 

34 



I stayed home two weeks, renewed my contract 
at a salary of five hundred dollars for the next 
year and returned to the lumber village. 

The company was running three camps and had 
about one hundred men and twenty teams in the 
woods. 

Before I left Mystic, Mr. Allyn suggested that 
upon my return, I go up into the woods, visit the 
several camps and report to him how I found 
things. 

I followed the suggestion, stayed about three 
weeks, visiting all of the camps and noted as far 
as I was able, the way they were conducted, and 
the results. 

Most certainly I offered few suggestions, and did 
not make myself conspicuous. 

Preparing for the log drive, upon my return to 
the village and the preliminary work of a big sea- 
son before us, kept me very busy until the logs 
came down. 

We had a good drive and our "booms" were 
full of logs. 

Very much to my surprise, I was told to get 
the mill ready for business and start it up. 

This I proceeded to do and while our mill and 
rafting crews numbered several hundred men, I 
managed to get them into line and the work pro- 
gressed satisfactorily. 

One of the incidents that helped my standing 
with the crew came about when our engineer gave 
me notice at nine o'clock in the forenoon that he 

35 



should only work till twelve o'clock. 

When asked for the reason he said he had no 
suitable society, there was nothing congenial in the 
village, and he could only stand it till noon. 

I had hired him from Milwaukee. 

He had a certificate from a technical school 
there, and a recommend from a firm in whose em- 
ploy he had served. 

We drove the mill with a one hundred and fifty 
horse, high power engine, fed from three large 
boilers, in which steam was made from the saw 
dust from the double rotary mill. 

Two Norwegian firemen kept the furnace full. 

The business of the engineer was to watch the 
engine and particularly the bells that led from 
all around the mill, and when rung meant "stop 
quick," someone might be in danger. 

The engine was provided with a "starting bar' 
and could be quickly reversed. 

I asked the engineer if he could not stay till 
Saturday night. 

This was of a Monday morning. 

He replied, "No, last Saturday night was 
enough for me." 

I intimated that I really didn't engage him for 
a society man and our contract did not mention 
it. 

Words seemed useless and I went down to the 
rafting crew and asked three men to come up to 
the mill with me. 

These three men were brothers, large, husky fel- 

36 




lows, that came from Canada the year before, 
where lots of our help came from. 

They were hard up when I hired them and they 
had been in the service of the company ever since 
and had proved reliable. 

Early in the spring, one of them had fallen in- 
to the river above a crib of lumber and the current 
had taken him under the crib. 

The four of us were on the crib when he went 
over and as this crib was against another below 
it, he would be kept under and drowned before he 
could get below the rafted lumber. 

Instantly I started to make an opening between 
these cribs, the others helping me and the two of 
them held the cribs apart while I let myself down 
into the water, where I thought the body would 
come. 

It struck my legs almost at once, and holding 
to the lumber with one hand, with the other I 
reached down and brought him up. 

It was a close squeak but he came out all right 
and the brothers always seemed to feel that they 
could not do enough for me. I have told this 
story simply to show why I picked these men. 

When I had them away from the crew, I told 
them about the engineer and told them I relied 
on them to help me. 

The first thing they asked me was if I wanted 
them "to break him up." 

Maybe I did not know just what they meant, 
but I told them, as he did not like the society 

37 



here, I simply wanted them to remove him from it, 
and they were to see that he went immediately 
to his boarding house, secured his "kennebecker" 
and walked out of the village, over the big bridge. 

That was all; would they do it? 

"You bet we will!" they replied. 

So we went into the basement of the mill where 
the engine was located and asking the engineer to 
step out with us, I handed him seventy-five cents 
in silver and told him that was his pay up to ten 
o'clock and that he was excused. 

He tried to talk but I informed him that the 
men with him would go with him to his boarding 
house and keep with him till he got his traps and 
then go with him out of the village and across the 
big bridge, and my advice to him would be "Keep 
on going." 

It was only twelve miles to the next village 
so he could easily reach it before night. 

I told the boys in his presence that if he hung 
back at all for two of them to take each an arm 
and the third to walk behind with one foot mostly 
in the air. 

The instructions were implicitly followed and I 
never heard of him after that day. 

I had never run an engine in my life but as 
there was no man in the crew competent, I handled 
it for some eleven days, till I got a man from New 
Lisbon, and most luckily I made good. 

Another matter came up this season that attract- 
ed considerable attention. 

38 




Mrs. B. F. Miner 



Our double rotary was sawing about fifty thou- 
sand feet a day and as I watched it, I was sure it 
could do more. 

So I gave the "tail sawyer" another job and I 
took his place for four w T eeks, learning the busi- 
ness, or trying my best to. 

At the end of that period I had the old tail 
sawyer come back and sent the head sawyer down 
on the rafting platform, and I took his place. 

After my first week, the record for the three 
months I handled the saw was fifty-nine thousand, 
eight hundred and seventy feet per day. 

After the mill closed for the season, I went 
down to the mouth of the Wisconsin on a raft and 
came back to get ready for the winter's logging. 

B. F. Miner was running the store and keeping 
the books. 

He got married and this step added much to my 
comfort, for they kept house over the new store 
and I was taken in, both as a boarder and as a 
friend. 

And right here I want to say that Mrs. Miner 
was a great lover of books and one of, if not the 
best educated women I have ever met. 

She seemed to think she could improve me edu- 
cationally in many ways, and as I look back I can 
readily see that the need was very apparent. 

In the early part of this narrative I had consid- 
erable to say about attending the village school, 
but I did not say that the studies were chosen in 
the main by the pupil. 

39 



This, however, was true, and personally the 
three R's were my limit. 

Geography, Grammar, Algebra and History, 
though studied by some in the school, were never 
studied by me, and while in hearing them recite 
I caught on to the fact that Connecticut was one of 
the eastern states and that there was a lot in the 
Grammar about "he loves, she loves, and they both 
love," I got none of it first hand. 

Having so few studies, I naturally ought to have 
excelled in them, but in all but Arithmetic I was 
only ordinary. 

In Arithmetic I was at the head of our class. 

I still have some sixty "Rewards of Merit" given 
me by several teachers, and I would like to ask 
those of the boys who were in my class and are 
still alive, if they can show as many. 

My close acquaintance with Mrs. Miner lasted 
over fifty years and up to her death, a year or so 
ago, we were always the best of friends. 

Positions that I have been called upon to fill, 
and lines of work that I have been called upon to 
perform, could never have been prosecuted suc- 
cessfully, had it not been for the educational help 
which she gave me in the sixties. 

For two or three years before going to Mr. 
Miner's to board, I had been a boarder in the fam- 
ily of Dr. L. W. Bacon, who also boarded some 
other of the Mystic boys. 

They were state-of-Maine people and the "salt 
of the earth." 

40 




* - ' 



Miss Virginia L. Bacon 



The Post Office was in their house and I was 
Deputy Postmaster. 

They had two girls in their family, the old- 
est about seventeen, named Virginia, and as hand- 
some as girls are usually made. 

All of us Mystic boys were in love with her and 
she "wound the whole of us around her finger," 
as the saying is. 

How she could have held the lot of us as she 
did is still a wonder to me. 

It was a pleasant place to live and we were 
a very happy company. 

When the most of us had left Wisconsin, she 
married one of the Mystic boys, the best one, 
of course, and she and her husband have since 
visited my family here in Mystic. 

An old log school house in bad repair and lit- 
tle used was situated just outside the village limits 
at the North, and the New England temperament 
of the lumber company induced them to build a 
nice frame school house in the village and paint 
it white, all at their own expense. 

Every Sunday morning we held Sabbath school 
in this building, and strange as it seems to write 
it, for years I was the superintendent of the school. 

Miss Virginia Bacon directed the singing and I 
think it was to see her and hear her sing, that al- 
ways gave us a good attendance. 

When the weather was fairly favorable we had a 
preaching service in the afternoon. 

This was conducted by Rev. E. G. Piersons of 

41 



New Lisbon. 

He had to walk some twelve miles to reach the 
village but I do not remember that he ever inti- 
mated that he was tired, and I do remember that 
his sermon was full of life and suggestions so 
practical and sensible that he was listened to with 
the closest attention. 

In all the years he preached to us I never learn- 
ed what denomination he belonged to, but he gave 
us evidence that he represented that church spoken 
of in the New Testament whose mission was to do 
good and help your fellow man. 

If the community was not improved morally 
and spiritually by his teachings, it was not for 
lack of good example. 

He was hired for no salary, and there were times 
when his cash receipts were very light. 

At one time B. F. Miner, desiring to get up a 
donation in his interest, advertised a big dance in 
the hotel, stipulating that the "bar" should be 
closed and some eighty dollars was realized from 
this social event. 

At another time a wrestling match between two 
burly raftsmen was timed to come off on Sunday, 
and it did, and the winner divided his ten dollars 
with the preacher, telling him he had earned it 
"by the sweat of his brow." 

No collections were ever taken up in church 
and as a rule the money paid the minister was 
chipped in mostly by us Mystic boys. 

While none of us as I remember belonged to 

42 







Rev. E. E. Piersons 



any church, we had all been "raised" in New 
England and as far as my observation has ex- 
tended, boys brought up there seem to require 
something in the way of church service and an 
observation of the Lord's Day. 

The walk of twelve miles and the preaching 
service in the afternoon never prevented the Elder 
from making a trip around the village, calling on 
the sick, cheering them with words and many times 
helping them from his very small store, and then 
walking back the twelve miles home again. 

He had an educational position through the 
week and I presume his regular duties and his 
walk of twenty-four miles almost every Sunday, 
kept him so fit that even the thoughts of a vacation 
never worried him; he certainly during my ac- 
quaintance with him never had one. 

It was the wish of the company that I take one 
of the camps the winter of '64 and '65 and run 
it. 

Their wish had up to this time been my law, 
but I thought this was a little more than I ought 
to undertake. 

I cared nothing for the hard work, and knew I 
could stand it to be eighty miles from a settlement 
for five months; but it was the unwritten law that 
no one could run a camp but a State-of -Maine man 
and he, to be qualified, must have had years of 
training. 

To take advantage of all favorable conditions, 
to be weatherwise, to drive the crew to the limit, 

43 



and still keep their good will, to properly order 
the supplies, to arrange the logging roads and 
cut the proper "Sections" owned by the company 
which the boss was also supposed to survey and 
run out, to keep up the tools, make an occasional 
ox-yoke, ax-handle, sled runner, or weld a chain 
link with thick pine bark for the fire, all of this 
was supposed to be done by the boss, and beside, 
if the man cook did not do the cooking properly, 
he was to be shown the right way by the boss. 

Now when you think this over, for a boy of less 
than twenty, with the little experience I had had, 
to assume all of this, made me hesitate. 

However, I went up with my crew, built my 
camp and outbuildings and put in the hardest win- 
ter of my life. 

I did make an ox yoke, ax-helves, a lot of them, 
I did survey the timber land, was lost two days, 
but ran into a camp of Winnibago Indians, fed 
up on dried muskrats and came out 0. K. 

My hardest fight was to overcome the jealousy 
of those who felt they ought to hold my posi- 
tion. 

The great majority of my crew were faithful to 
me, however, and our winter's work tallied out 
more logs than any camp equally situated on the 
river. 

When my year was up the company advanced 
my wages to a thousand a year and that continued 
while I was with them. 

I did not join the log drive in the spring as the 

44 



Governor had commissioned me to "scale," or 
measure logs at the sorting booms. This scaling 
or measuring of logs was a pretty lively job and 
attended with many difficulties. 

The tool used was a straight stick or rule, forty- 
eight inches long with plain one inch marks and 
figures beginning at one end, and continuing to 
the other end. 

On the lower end of the stick was a hook or 
bracket about three inches long that you caught 
under the log and sung out the figure that the 
rule indicated on top of the log, which figure was 
duly recorded by the clerk. 

Each lumber company, logging on the river had 
their registered log mark. 

The one our company owned was IIVII and this 
was "ax cut" into the side of the log and the log 
was also end-marked with a setting maul. 

At the first boom up the river some 80 miles 
from camp, the owner of that mill had his logs 
selected or sorted from the others, and the mills 
down stream had their logs released to come to 
them, and this process took place at each mill. 
Ours was the fifth, down from the first. 

The man who scaled the logs had to see the 
mark and call that, as he did the measurement, for 
the logs were all driven by the thousand feet. 

To jump onto a log, roll it over, see the mark 
and call it off at the same time, to measure the 
length with your eye and call that too, was a pretty 
good illustration of the text "step lively," for the 

45 



water was always rapid, and very wet, and the 
logs coming swiftly, and sometimes a small one 
would go under water before you could catch the 
measure. 

So the job was anything but desirable, and the 
applicants were very few. 

The company thought it would be in their inter- 
est to provide a man for this work and so as before 
said the Governor commissioned me, and I filled 
the position with credit to the company which I 
represented. 

When the mill was ready to start I insisted on 
running the big saw; and with a brother of Gurdon 
Allyn's to superintend, I ran the saw all of that 
season. 

In the fall I made two trips on lumber down the 
river, selling the same and returning with the 
money. 

In those days the Mississippi River was not 
merely a highway by name, and from St. Louis 
to LaCrosse, lines of steamers made regular trips 
and the river was full of life and activity. 

I have seen six side and stern wheel steamboats 
at one time in motion up and down the river, and 
lumber rafts containing from one to three million 
feet of lumber were a common sight. 

At that time the only railroad bridge across the 
river was at Rock Island; a few years ago when I 
made the trip from St. Louis to St. Paul, we went 
through twenty-eight bridges. 

The railroads have taken the river traffic and 

46 



many of the river towns have gone into the discard. 

Handsome side wheel steamers like the Andy 
Johnson, Harry Johnson and the Minnesota gave 
you passage and regular meals at about two and 
a half dollars a day; and many stern wheelers of 
which the Phil Sheridan was the most popular 
boat, kept the water constantly stirred up. 

Their management was carried on as much in the 
interest of the patrons as of the owners, and many 
a time I signalled one of these big boats from my 
raft and they would send a boat and four men 
to take me aboard to go down the river with them. 

My object was to go to some town further down 
and make sale of the lumber. 

Every raft had its own special flag, and coming 
back up the river any steamer would stop and send 
a boat with me to my raft if desired, which raft 
I had located by its flag. 

For some eight years the Mississippi River, dur- 
ing the rafting season was my home. 

To procure subsistence for the crew, find mar- 
kets for the lumber and pay off the men, were my 
most important duties. 

It is generally conceded that the old time rafts- 
men and Mississippi steamboat men were the 
roughest, toughest, and all-round meanest combin- 
ation that ever existed. 

My experience would lead me to agree with this 
classification, but I should insist on exceptions. 

I remember when our raft was tied up at Mus- 
catine, Iowa, that every man, and there were over 

47 



thirty, left me alone on the fleet while they went 
ashore to spend the night at cheap hotels and rum 
holes. 

When the trip was ended many of the men would 
not have a dollar in wages coming to them, but it 
was a part of the contract that they were entitled 
to "back pay," which meant buying them a return 
ticket to the place we hired them, and by the law 
we were obliged to buy the ticket rather than give 
them its cost in money. 

I might as well say right here that when I en- 
tered the hotel in Werner in 1863 and received the 
intelligence of the landlord's sickness with small 
pox, it was told me by several drunken bums that 
were piled up in various shapes and conditions 
in the bar room, and their very cordial invitation 
to drink with them was refused, and for nearly 
the ten years I was in and around that country I 
never tasted a glass of rum or beer. 

The only credit that is due me for this is, that 
I had engaged in this business to succeed and my 
continued observation confirmed my then formed 
judgment that I could not mix rum and success in 
the same glass. 

After the last sales of lumber in the fall, I made 
the arrangements for the winter's lumbering, ably 
assisted by B. F. Miner, who attended to procuring 
the supplies and engineered the financial part of 
the business. 

The winter following my running one camp, the 
three camps were put under my charge and 1 

48 



spent a part of the time at each. The company 
made money and their credit was unquestioned. 

Mr. Wightman moved his family from Mystic 
to Werner and developed a "bad lung" that had to 
be soaked in whiskey and which eventually result- 
ed in the failure of the company, and no improve- 
ment to the lung. 

Gurdon Allyn of Mystic saw how things were 
going and sold out his interest before the smash. 

The fact that the business went into the hands 
of a receiver and even then paid ninety-five per 
cent, of all claims shows that sober management 
would have given continued profits. 

If some reader of this story should look for *he 
location of named places and fail to find on the 
map Werner, Wis., he need not think there was no 
such place, for in the sixties it had a Post Office, 
two large hotels, the largest saw mill on the river, 
and a good sized population. 

The mill has gone, the hotels have gone, all of 
the houses have been torn down and moved away, 
and there is neither Post Office or church to mark 
the place. 

Less than a life time has made this great change 
and it would be interesting to know how many of 
the old residents are yet on this side of the "Great 
Divide." 

Originally settled by people from the State of 
Maine, they were reliable, honest and a fair minded 
lot. 

The most of them were of large growth, both 

49 



men and women, and one of our Mississippi pilots 
whose home was here stood six feet and seven 
inches in his stockings and weighed over four hun- 
dred pounds. 

The boys had a story they told about my "paying 
attention" (whatever that was), to one of these 
large sized "State of Maine girls," and while it 
seems needless for me to say that the story was not 
truthful I will tell it, as they told it, and as it is 
even told today by one of the surviving boys now T 
living near here. 

Mr. Moses Chase was landlord of one of the 
hotels, and he had a daughter Lucy, that was very 
entertaining and interesting and beautiful. 

Now I have always argued that a big man 
ached harder than a small one, and if this is true, 
a girl of seventeen summers that weighed two hun- 
dred and eighty pounds and was proportionately 
good looking and sweet and entertaining must 
have been so to a very large degree. 

I know that many evenings found me a caller 
upon the fair Lucy in the parlor of the hotel. 

So much loveliness had no chance to be neglect- 
ed, and many other young men sought her society. 

Now the story told about me was that at half 
past eleven in the evening a gentleman named 
"William Stevens" who had been sitting up with 
her, went to change the position of his arm, and 
ran afoul of my arm that had partially encircled 
her for hours, on the other side. 

As before said I do not believe this story, and 

50 




Miss Alice Hale 




C. Q. Eldredge 
Miss Arabella Thew 1865 Miss Alice Hale 



several girls with whom I have had the honor of 
sitting up, joined me in general denial in writing, 
on the grounds that they believed it unreasonable 
and not in accord with my general mode of pro- 
cedure. 

I only tell the yarn to show what foolish and 
unlikely stories may be circulated by jealous 
rivals. 

The pictures of Werner girls that I am honored 
by being enabled to show in this book, will bear 
me out in this statement that they were attractive 
and interesting. 

I am very sorry I can not show the picture of 
"Lucy," before mentioned, but I, realizing what 
I should ask for in requesting one, never had a 
volume of courage sufficient to make the request. 

The years of my life on the Wisconsin and Mis- 
sissippi Rivers contained many items that, taken 
individually, would make interesting stories, but 
to frame them into this history is not a part of my 
work. 

Each year was much a repetition of its prede- 
cessor until the final breakup in 1869 when B. F. 
Miner and myself bought a nearby farm of one 
hundred and sixty acres for the purpose of raising 
hops, which were then selling for sixty cents a 
pound. When we had twelve acres of hops in 
condition to pick, which took two years, we had 
expended all the money we had saved from our 
salaries while in the lumber business and a hop 
market of four cents a pound instead of sixty cents 

51 



confronted us. 

However, with the help of some fifty girls that 
we "imported" for that purpose, we harvested our 
crop, paid all our bills, but did not have funds 
enough left in our hands to buy a two bladed 
jackknife. 

This failure in the hop business ruined hun- 
dreds of farmers and very many merchants who 
had advanced them money and stores on the secur- 
ity they thought they had in hops. 

As Miner and I had some stock on the farm 
and a good pair of horses, we decided to go to 
farming. 

This was one of the years when wild pigeons 
were so plenty they broke down thousands of 
small pine trees by lighting in them. We sowed 
some eighty acres to oats, but the land was sandy 
and the season dry and when it was time to harvest 
them, we found they were so short that a pigeon 
had to get on his knees to pick off the kernels. 

While this land was suitable for hops, for gen- 
eral farming it was a failure. 

Our bill of fare was, for the winter, venison, 
pigeons, hubbard squash with milk gravy. 

This we changed every day in the order they 
were served, the goods were always the same. 

In the winter of 1870, I came to Mystic to attend 
the Golden Wedding anniversary of my parents. 

As the old house was small, the reception was 
held in Morgan Hall. 

Some four hundred invitations were issued and 

52 









Christopher Eldredge Nancy Eldredge 

In 1870 



the most of those invited, qualified. 

To make the exercises all the more interesting, 
a grand-son of the celebrants was married during 
the festivities. 

I would say while on the subject of marriage 
ceremonies, that my parents lived to celebrate their 
sixtieth marriage anniversary, that I was present 
and that all the good things said and done ten 
years before were repeated, except the marriage 
of the grand-son, he feeling that there was no 
need of more business on his part, 

While on this trip east, George F. Langworthy 
insisted that I come to his house in the spring., run 
his farm and sell it if possible and that the money 
from the sale should be turned over to me and be 
invested by me in some business that I might desire 
to enter into. 

I had, however, agreed with my brother, James, 
to purchase the sailing sloop, Maria, and run her 
as a freighter and for rockweed or kelp, and this 
would prevent my immediate acceptance of the 
Langworthy proposition. 

We bought the Maria in the spring, and in 
April, 1871, I took out my papers from the Ston- 
ington Custom House as Captain, and we drove her 
through the season to the full limit and made her 
pay about a hundred dollars a month to each of us. 

We made long days and many times they were 
the full twenty-four hours. 

I thought a lot about what Mr. Langworthy had 
said to me and his proposition opened up some 

53 



possibilities that I thought worthy of investigation. 

This resulted in finding that the title to the farm 
was in the name of Mrs. Langworthy instead of 
Mr., and that it was heavily mortgaged to the 
Norwich Savings Society to make good the notes 
Mr. Langworthy had put into the Wisconsin Lum- 
ber business. 

There had been at this time two large dividends 
paid by the Wisconsin Receiver but these notes 
were not recognized by him as claims against the 
old firm. 

If these mortgages remained, there would be 
practically no farm to sell. 

After looking the matter over carefully, I made 
the Langworthys the proposition, that if they would 
have the Norwich Savings Society surrender their 
claim to me, I would endeavor to make the Receiv- 
er allow it; and if they would pay my expenses out 
and back to Wisconsin, there would be no other 
costs, and if I was successful I would run their 
farm a year unless sold quicker on the proposition 
Mr. Langworthy had made me. When Mr. 
Langworthy tried to get the securities from the 
Norwich Savings Society, they turned him down, 
and he told me he could get no one to help him. 

I went to Mr. A. B. Taylor and put the case up 
to him. He questioned me closely and sharply and 
then turning to me said, "So you want me to go 
to Norwich with you and guarantee you for six 
thousand dollars, do you? While you take these 
papers and go to Wisconsin, where is my security 

54 



coming from?" 

I said, "On my own account I would never ask 
it, but it is in the interests of the Langworthys. 

"I feel absolutely sure that I can handle the Wis- 
consin end, and for you to have a souvenir while 
I am gone, I will leave you my personal note for 
the whole amount." 

He said, "How about leaving your note with 
the bank?" 

"Because," I said, "they wouldn't take it for a 
dollar." 

He went to Norwich with me, pledged up to the 
bank all they required and they turned over to me 
their claim. 

Believing I had justice on my side, I secured 
from the receiver after quite a struggle, the two 
dividends already paid and later ninety-five per 
cent, of the full claim. 

I thanked Mr. Taylor for his confidence and his 
act was never forgotten. 

I commenced to farm in Mystic in January, 
1872, and among other departments opened up a 
village milk route. 

I still have the milk-bell. 

I kept three hundred hens and ran a small mar- 
ket garden. 

Most of my eggs and vegetables were sold at 
the Pequot Hotel in New London. 

A young lady from Lansingburgh, New York, 
visited at the farm in the summer and all work 
seemed to go easier after her arrival. 



I kept no help, had very little help from Mr. 
Langworthy and yet I made the farm pay. 

The hens averaged a dollar profit per hen and 
the milk route, though small, paid well. 

I delivered for six cents per quart. 

I sold the farm in July, 1873, for eight thousand 
five hundred dollars cash, to B. F. Lewis and A. B. 
Taylor. 

We had an auction and disposed of personal farm 
property, and the furniture was sent to Hoosick 
Falls, New York. 

I actually ran the farm eighteen months and 
made it pay about a thousand dollars. 

I made a visit to Lansingburgh, New York, early 
in 1873, to renew acquaintance with the young lady 
from there who had visited the farm the year 
before. 

Through her father a business opening in Hoos- 
ick Falls was found calling for about the amount 
of money received from the Langworthy's farm. 

This was turned over to me, the Langworthys 
taking my notes payable, one thousand a year as 
made from the business. 

The Langworthys set up house-keeping in Hoos- 
ick Falls, N. Y. 

I entered as partner in the business of M. F. 
White & Co., and between the anxieties of a new 
business, the getting ready to be married which 
was arranged for September, and the home-sick- 
ness of the Langworthys, I had troubles without 
end. 

56 



The Langworthys decided to return to Mystic 
and instead of living up to our agreements both 
verbal and written, they demanded all of their 
money, and at once. 

My father-in-law-to-be wanted me to have no 
trouble with them and he took my unsecured notes 
for something over six thousand dollars payable 
with interest, one thousand a year, and I am pleased 
to record the fact that each and every one of 
them was paid the day it became due. 

I never got a cent for Wisconsin collections or 
the months of personal service rendered the Lang- 
worthys, without which they would have lost 
their farm entirely. 

I was married in September, 1873, and lived 
in Hoosick Falls till 1893. 

I had a large business which I increased from 
sales of thirteen hundred a month in 1873, to 
thirteen thousand dollars a month in 1893, when 
I sold out. 

All of my savings had been invested in well 
selected real estate and next to Walter A. Wood 
I was the largest individual tax payer in town. 

In 1892 the reelection of Cleveland upset all 
values and possibly no place was harder hit than 
Hoosick Falls. 

My property outside of my business was im- 
proved real estate consisting of rented property 
with rentals ranging from six to thirty dollars per 
month. 

This had given me so good an income that I 

57 



fell able to put a man in charge of the property 
as agent, and move to Mystic and there make a 
permanent home. 

The gentleman with whom I entered into part- 
nership in Hoosick Falls took me in because of 
failing health and he continued to get worse, and 
never visited the office a half a dozen times after 
the partnership was formed. 

It made it pretty hard for me, a stranger to 
the business, and the place, to make a success of 
it, but I put in long days and skipped vacations 
till 1876, when I went to Philadelphia to the Cen- 
tennial Exposition. 

In November of that year my partner died, and 
though he left a will and executors, I was appoint- 
ed to settle the estate which was a fairly large 
one, and in so far as I know, it was settled satis- 
factorily to all interested parties. Sometime after 
his death I purchased his interest in the business, 
and later the entire real estate connected therewith. 

I could readily tell many things about Hoosick 
Falls that naturally seem a part of this story, but 
I feel that the village as the birthplace of the 
Walter A. Wood Mowing Machine Co. has notoriety 
enough. 

I will, however, tell of an incident indirectedly 
connected with the village that has caused much 
comment. 

This story relates to the only tombstone in the 
world where the survivors seem to get even with 
the doctors. 

58 




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In Maple Grove Cemetery 

Hoosick Falls, N. Y., stands 

a Tombstone with this inscription: 

'Ruth Sprague 
' Daughter of Gibson and Elizabeth Sprague 
'Died Jan. 11, 1816, Age 
'9 years, 1 month and 3 days. 
'She was stolen from the grave by Roderick B. Clow 
'and disected at Dr. P. M. Armstrong's office in 
'Hoosick, N. Y., from which place her mutilated 
'remains were obtained and deposited here. 
'Her body, dissected by fiendish men, 
'Her bones anatomised, 
'Her soul we trust has risen to God 
'Where few physicians rise.' 

The first house lot purchased by me in Hoosick 
Falls in 1873, I bought of this old couple and 
they were my neighbors for years. Having had 
very little experience in biography writing, I 
must ask my readers to pardon me if at times 1 am 
not consecutive in my recitals and have as it were 
to "back up." 

When I went to Hoosick Falls in 1872, the vil- 
lage had twenty-five hundred inhabitants; in 1892 
it had increased to seventy-five hundred. 

I always gloried in the village, and for its suc- 
cess, was ever ready to sing its praises, and help 
furnish the music. 

I built and ran a large wood-working factory 

59 



in connection with my lumber yard, built and 
conducted the only grist-mill for miles around, 
ran a machine shop, and furnished rooms and 
power to a shirt factory working several hundred 
girls, rooms and power to a toy factory, and 
worked a large crew of carpenters and masons 
building over two hundred buildings by contract 
in the years I was there. 

I was also instrumental in erecting, equipping 
and superintending a knit goods factory, employ- 
ing a hundred hands and was treasurer of the 
corporation for two years. 

I was one of the two men that secured the in- 
corporation of the First National Bank of Hoosick 
Falls, which institution has ever stood as a credit 
to its promoters. 

Politically I was known as a Republican and 
for the success of the party I was ever ready to 
do my part. 

I refused many offers of a candidacy for politi- 
cal honors, rather preferring to devote my entire 
time to my business. 

I made one and only one exception and that 
for a village office when Walter A. Wood and 
a hundred and thirty-five residents of my ward 
signed a petition asking me to run for trustee. 

I was elected by a handsome majority. 

While holding office, it was for two years, the 
Honorable Walter A. Wood died. 

His death was a great loss to the village, and 
this, taken with Cleveland's reelection, sent all 

60 



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% 

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X5 

O 



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o 



values down, practically closed the large manu- 
facturing interests of the town, made the people 
unable to pay their rents, since they had no work, 
and rentable property became a drug on the mar- 
ket. 

My wife, her sister and mother, had all died 
in one month of typhoid fever in the year of 1885, 
and their loss to me had broken up in a large 
degree the deep interest in business that I had 
taken up to that time. 

I had the house in Mystic on my hands and 
thought best to use it. 

I tried to get this built by contractors near 
Mystic but the only bid I received was from the 
Sherman Lumber Co. of Westerly and their price 
was some eighteen thousand dollars. 

So I built it with my own men from Hoosick 
Falls, paying one railroad over a thousand dol- 
lars for transportation of workmen. Bentley & 
Co. of New London furnished the material and 
one barge of six hundred tons burden came from 
their yard to my dock, the largest vessel that ever 
came to the headwaters of the Mystic River. 

But right here I want to say that when a boy 
back in 1861 there was sailing from lower Mystic 
sixteen ships, ten barks, ten schooners and four 
sloops; and from the masthead of one of them in 
1862, I saw the Great Eastern steam westward 
through Long Island Sound. 

We furnished this house "Riverview" so called 
in 1890. I had remarried and with my wife and 

61 



three children and hired help from Hoosick Falls, 
we spent the summers of '91 and '92 at Mystic. 

In 1893 we moved to the house permanently, 
sending some furniture from Hoosick Falls and 
a car load from New York City as the house was 
large and required a lot of it. 

I continued to own the Hoosick Falls real estate 
up to 1896 when the condition of the country and 
of Hoosick Falls in particular, was so bad that I 
determined to sell it. 

This was no easy task, but I finally sold for 
eleven thousand three hundred dollars what had 
cost me in cash at a low figure one hundred and 
thirteen thousand dollars. 

It took a lot of nerve to sign those deeds, for 
the property was never mortgaged for a dollar, 
and although through buying it, the purchaser 
has become the richest man in the village, I have 
never had a regret that I sold it. 

In 1902 together with my wife, I made an ex- 
tended trip south and west reaching in a round- 
about way, St. Louis, and from there by steamboat 
up the Mississippi River to St. Paul. 

Among the many pleasant incidents of this trip 
was a visit to Mark Twain's old home in Hanni- 
bal, Mo., and a half hour spent with him at the 
hotel in that city where he was then staying. The 
changes of forty years, I have very briefly touched 
upon, and a few things that emphasize those 
changes I desire to bring forward. 

We met in the eight hundred mile passage only 

62 



c 
B 



O 



X 



7? 








one lumber raft, and instead of some twenty men 
with huge oars at each end of the raft, two small 
steamers took their place. 

One steamer lashed to the raft across her bow, 
and the other endwise at the rear of the raft. 

The only men in sight were those in the pilot 
house of the steamer. 

When I was in the lumber business in Wisconsin 
we "ran" our lumber down the Wisconsin River 
to its mouth near Clayton, Iowa, and then fasten- 
ed it together, making one large raft. 

In coming down the Wisconsin River, all lum- 
ber had to pass through the "Dells." 

So far as I know there is no natural scenery 
in the state of Wisconsin that compares with these 
"Dells." 

For some six miles the river is cut through 
solid rock that rises sometimes fifty feet or more 
above the water. 

At one place the whole river rushes through a 
cut where it is only fifty-two feet wide. 

It was dangerous for raftsmen and many lost 
their lives here. 

The strange shapes that the rocks have acquired 
from the action of the water are wonderful. 

Today there is a line of pleasure and excursion 
steamers running from Kilboum City up through 
the "Dells" and no person going over the M. & 
St. Paul R. R. will ever regret a stop over at this 
place, and a careful inspection of this, one of 
nature's most wonderful works. 

63 



There were so many steam boat lines on the 
upper Mississippi in the sixties that great induce- 
ments were held out to the lumbermen to send 
their men back by this line, or that line, they of- 
fering better fare and cheaper mileage than their 
competitors. My position as paymaster, and man- 
ager of transportation for the men, brought me 
in direct communication with the captains and 
pursers of these boats with whom in the interest 
of the lumber company, I made the best terms pos- 
sible. 

Sometimes there would be a half dozen crews of 
raftsmen going up to LaCrosse on the same boat, 
numbering from a hundred and fifty to two hun- 
dred men, and as every boat had an enormous 
bar room and a saloon that would accommodate 
from ten to twenty sets of card parties, the trips 
were frequently lively. 

In no instance did I see the officers of the boat 
interfere in the amusements? of the raftsmen. 

It frequently developed into gun play and at 
one time I saw a card player accused of cheating, 
hung by the neck from the flagpole of the steamer 
till he acknowledged the crime, and tho I rode 
some three hundred miles further up the river 
on the same boat with him, he did not recover life 
enough to walk and was carried ashore by his 
comrades at the landing to which he was ticketed. 

The captains and mates of these steamers were 
picked men, and altho many writers have under- 
taken to tell the rough way they handled their 

64 



crews, called "roustabouts" I have never seen 
paper with enough asbestos in its makeup to 
withstand the fire and brimstone that would flow 
from the pen that truthfully told the story. 

They allowed the raftsmen to do as they pleased 
for the financial interest of the steamboat com- 
pany centered in satisfied passengers. 

The following incident taken from the New 
York World and dated July 11, gives a good idea 
of how business was carried on in those good old 
days. 

The item reads: 

"Davenport, Iowa, Christopher Leonidas {and 
his son, long haired medicine men, wearing sharp- 
shooter's medals and heavily armed, boarded the 
Diamond Joe Steamer, Dubuque, at Rock Island, 
111., and attempted to take possession of the craft. 

"Mate Dan Green shot and killed both men 
when the boat was in front of Davenport, and 
their bodies were taken off here. The coroner's 
jury exonerated Green." 

I was not on this steamer when this happened, 
but have been a passenger on her many times. 

"Riverview" with its thirty acre park and three 
acre house lot gave me plenty of work and as the 
house was full of guests during the summer, rela- 
tives and friends, we were always busy. I built 
a fine dam on the west side of the park, one and 
a half miles of roads within its bounds, trimmed 
personally over six thousand trees, large and 
small, that grew wild on its acres, dug a well 

65 



near a log summer house and arranged the same 
with the old style "well sweep," set out over 
three thousand catalpa trees, arranged tables with 
seats, fireplaces and so forth, where many picnics 
were held, and built a tower one hundred and 
twenty-five feet high that gave a good view from 
its top of Block Island, Long Island and contiguous 
territory. 

Some of the means employed to make it inter- 
esting for the friends who visited us in this rather 
isolated section of the country are possibly worthy 
of mention. 

In the first place we had, besides our house-lot 
and park, the Mystic River, that is unsurpassed 
in natural beauty, and its power to furnish pleas- 
ure and enjoyment to those who obtain satisfac- 
tion from boating. 

I built the yacht, James G. Blaine, with accom- 
modations for six people, and furnished her with 
every thing necessary for comfort, row boats and 
power boats were ever ready at the landing and 
in stormy weather a regulation sixty -five foot 
bowling alley with shooting gallery adjoining, 
gave an opportunity for inside amusement. 

I felt when I built "Riverview" that it was 
largely for my friends, and their enjoyment was 
to me the greatest of my compensations. 

I tried to do some farming and one year raised 
the largest potatoes reported in the state, weighing 
two and a half pounds each, and one year three 
hundrd and thirty-five measured bushels of mer- 

66 




.5 
•a 



S 
d 



o 



chantable potatoes from a measured acre. 

So for years the same conditions existed and 
the same line of work was pursued. 

In 1904, my younger son, eighteen years of 
age, met a very tragic death and as I had counted 
on him to stay at home and run the place, it upset 
all of my plans and made me desire to get away 
from it. 

I immediately commenced to advertise it for 
sale, but it was not until April, 1913, that I sold 
it. 

In 1904, I made a personal trip to Jamaica, 
West Indies, staying several months and making 
quite a study of the manners and customs of the 
people in the thinly settled portions of the island. 
I brought back many curios and had many inter- 
esting experiences with the natives. 

In December, 1905, my wife and I attended 
the Atlanta, Georgia, Exposition, and remained 
south during the winter. » 

We found it worked better to be away from Old 
Mystic winters rather than summers, as this plan 
did not interfere with the large numbers of friends 
that each year broke bread with us. 

In 1911, having acquired a financial interest in 
a citrus fruit plantation in Porto Rico, I decided 
to visit it, and with Judge Willis E. Heaton of 
Troy, New York, and Frederic A. Barnes of Mystic, 
officers of the Fruit Co., we made the trip. 

After a satisfactory visit to the Island, we con- 
tinued south and visited Haitai, San Domingo, 

67 



Jamaica and the Isthmus of Panama. 

The work was well along on the canal and Col- 
onel Goethals made our visit very pleasant. 

We returned to Connecticut early in 1912. 

The old homestead, a couple of hundred feet 
south, built in 1850, had been destroyed by fire 
in 1900 and rebuilt by me for a tenant house. 

My two surviving children had married and 
were living in neighboring states and my wife 
and I moved into the tenant house. This I im- 
mediately commenced to rebuild and enlarge until 
its present size and shape were obtained. 

I built a large, private work-shop, 26x40 feef, 
and have a two-story garage, 20x20 feet, and wood 
house, 12x60 feet. 

In building over our present home it was my 
idea to make it a model of convenience and com- 
fort, and among some of the enjoyable features is a 
piazza on the river side, fifty-five feet long and 
eight feet wide; a fireplace in the library always 
ready for service and that burns wood four and a 
half feet long; hot and cold water from a never 
failing supply, all over the house; seventy-eight 
electric lamps placed around the house where they 
will be handy when you chance to want a light; 
the basement and three floors above heated by 
steam; the third floor above the basement ar- 
ranged as an art gallery and a hundred and thirty 
pictures now hang there; a perfect sewer system; 
all pumps run by electricity; a dining room 18x18 

68 



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The entire construction of this building, excavation, foundation, in 
side finish, tin work, roof, dec orating and lettering were ALL person- 
ally performed by the owner, Chas. Q. Eldredge, in his seventy-second 
year. Something over 3000 Souvenirs and Curios are on Exhibition, 
and to view them, his friends are ever welcome. 



feet in size to share with our friends. 

In the workshop I have an eight horse power 
engine, air cooled, and turning lathe, splitting 
saw, jig saw, drills, and power grinding stones, 
and emery wheels; also a seventy-five light dy- 
namo. 

So far as I know I have a full set of tools for 
carpenter, machinist, plumber, blacksmith, mason, 
paper hanger, painter and tinman; and am fairly 
well able to use any and all of them as occasion 
may require. 

A Government anemometer on the peak of the 
shop registers by electricity in the library in the 
house the velocity of the wind per hour. 

In 1917, I conceived the idea of a place to 
keep and show my many souvenirs, collected in 
my many cruises in and about the country; and 
so built a small building 20x20 feet in size, with 
sixteen foot posts, as a showroom. 

This has proved of much interest to the public 
as well as a pleasure to myself. 

Over five hundred visitors registered in the 
book during the last twelve months, and in many 
cases their interest resulted in sending something 
to the Museum to add to the collection. The build- 
ing has a large sign reading "Private Museum," 
but visitors are always welcome without charge 
or tip. 

A very complete, illustrated catalogue of the 
curios in the museum has been prepared and is 
obtainable if visitors desire. 

69 



Personally I have never taken much interest 
in geneology, but should some member of my 
family ever have the courage to wade through the 
pages I have written, it might serve to reward them 
for their trouble to find that they are legitimate 
descendants of: 

1. Samuel Eldred, born in England in 1620 

Died in Kingston, Rhode Island, in 1697. 

2. His son, Capt. Daniel Eldredge of Kingston, 

R. I., and Stonington, Conn., was captain 
of the troops and deputy to the General 
Court. Died at North Kingston, R. I., Aug. 
18, 1726. 

3. His son, James Eldredge, born Dec. 5, 1696 

Died at North Kingston, R. I., 1738. 

4. His son, Christopher Eldredge, born North 

Kingston, R. I., Jan. 22, 1722. Was wound- 
ed in the face during Arnold's attack on 
New London, Conn., Sept. 6, 1781 and 
died at Stonington, Conn., in 1811. 

5. His son, Joshua Eldredge, born at Stoning- 

ton, Conn., Aug. 9, 1798. Died at Ston- 
ington, Conn., Aug. 17, 1836. 

6. His son, Christopher Eldredge, born in Ston- 

ington, Conn., Nov. 14, 1798. Died at Old 
Mystic, Conn., June 4, 1890. 

7. His son, Charles Eldredge, known for over 

fifty years as Charles Q. Eldredge, born at 
Old Mystic, Conn., July 15, 1845. 
Through seven generations the family record 
reaches back without a break and though in the 

70 



early days the final "ge" was not added, the evi- 
dence is clear that it was the same family. 

Mr. William Henry Eldredge of Twin Falls, 
Idaho, has compiled a book of the family geneol- 
ogy and the above record is from his book. 

In reading over the pages I have already writ- 
ten, I am assured of one very evident feature of 
my work, and that is, that it differs from an ordin- 
ary autobiography in every particular, except that 
the writer was "born." 

This fact could not very well have been elim- 
inated, yet in the biography of the self made man, 
this is sometimes attempted. 

Before commencing this work I carefully read 
some suggestions made by the following k very 
successful writers: 

Franklin said, "Don't attempt to write a book 

unless you have to." 
Sylvanus Cobb said, "Don't write a book until 

you are absolutely full of it." 
Beecher said, "Don't write a book till you can 
preach a sermon, and the kind of a sermon 
that the congregation can enjoy, awake." 
Edward Everett Hale said, "Remember it is 
much easier to write a book than to make 
the public read it." 
Mark Twain said, "Before you write a book be 
satisfied in your own mind that it will 
make the reader laugh or cry." 
Being pretty well satisfied that it will meet one 
of the requirements quoted above, I have acquired 

71 



a stock of courage, sufficient to hand it to the 
public. 

I sincerely hope that the reader may find 
enough of interest to make him have a forgiving 
spirit, towards the uninteresting sections of the 
work, and that the time spent in going through 
it may not be considered entirely lost. 

"What is writ, is writ — 
Would it were worthier! but I am not now 
That which I have been, and my visions flit 
Less palpably before me, and the glow 
Which in my spirit dwelt, is fleeting, faint and 
low." 



72 






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